We can’t be satisfied with the way Sri Lankan first-class cricket is, says Chaminda Vaas

Sri Lankan cricket is going through a lean patch and especially it’s their bowling department which is facing the struggle. Talking about the same, bowling coach Chaminda Vaas has said that they need some alterations in first-class cricket that would help the fast bowlers.

“We can’t be satisfied with the way first-class cricket is,” Vaas was saying as quoted by ESPNCricinfo. “We need to make first-class cricket work for fast bowlers. We talk a lot about what ails first-class cricket, but no matter how much we talk, the issue hasn’t moved forward,” he said.

“If we want to improve our cricket and increase the number of fast bowlers we have – if we want to do justice to our cricket – we need to make pitches that are suited to fast bowlers,” Vaas said. “If we do that I trust that our bowlers would be better off than they are now,” the former Sri Lankan told.

Mentioning about the first-class fixures, Vaas suggested that the players need to play more games that they usually do.

“They need to play more, I think,” Vaas said. “If you take our first-class cricket, they don’t have enough first-class experience to play well. If you take quicks from any country, they start bowling well after they have played 20-25 Tests only. We can’t suddenly expect a lot from Vishwa and Lahiru Kumara. It’s with their mindset that they can improve. They need to practice a lot and play a lot of games. With that match experience only they will develop.”

The left-arm fast bowler added that next year they would having independent curators approving certain wickets.

“Next year we’re going to have independent curators approving certain wickets,” he had said. “It’s all costing us money because we have to retain a lot of people.”

“We’re putting the grounds on notice. By June or July, we’ll tell them they need to have good wickets ready by September. They have to put the top dressing and so on. It takes about three months. Hopefully next year we’ll have some better wickets. We’re importing rollers. We would like to have more of those three-ton rollers, because that is important to getting an even surface. We’ve asked our curators to go around and give the ground staff some training. We need to give some infrastructure assistance to the clubs. By the time we get to September, they’ll be sound,” he added.